Free Write- The Joys of Dog Walking

For the two writers in France, our favorite café was closed for repairs, but the alternative La Bronzette provided great chocolatine (pain au chocolate) as we prepared our pens and notewbooks. Rick's prompt was the joy of dog walking. Like Rick, Julia in Switzerland wrote a memoir. D-L did a fiction piece. The joys of three free writes is there can be great similarities of great differences.

Rick's Free Write

The legendary golfer Walter Hagen advised, “Don’t hurry. Don’t worry. And be sure to smell the flowers along the way.”

When I take Sherlock for a walk, it’s not flowers he’s smelling.

Typically, it’s urine-drenched weeds, bushes, poles, the sides and corners of buildings, pretty much anything vertical against which he can lift his leg.

He has a world-class three-legged stance, ambidextrous, and often stretches the loose leg higher than his little body.

I’ve read that male dogs try to spray as high as they can to make it seem – to other dogs who come along later – that they are bigger than their reality.

Whenever Sherlock encounters another dog in person, he feels compelled to leave a ‘p-mail’ message almost immediately after.

The streets of our village can be a merde minefield, one reason we rarely walk at night. In Switzerland, there are more farm fields to traverse. In addition to dog droppings, we need to watch for horse and cow plop.

Sherlock almost never goes the same route twice in a row. If yesterday was the ‘Nellie’ route (past his girlfriend’s house), today will be the ‘Nelson’ route (a friend’s French bulldog). The worst, for me, is the long pull up the hill to the parc mairie in Vandoeuvres – easily his favorite.

The walks are not only necessary, they’re good for him, and if I must admit good for me as well. The joy is in his eagerness to put on his harness, and his anticipation of treats on our return.

Amazingly, I’ve never stepped in shit in either place. (Now I’ve probably jinxed that.)

Rick Adams is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices.

D-L's Free Write

Walk ten steps, stop, wait, walk twelve steps, stop, wait, walk five steps, st...

 Zorro was especially slow this morning. His sniffs took longer, his pees definitely so, and he must be waiting for the park to dump.

Despite the sun, the wind felt cold, damned cold.

Getting Zorro at the shelter seemed like such a good idea during Covid. Those eyes, peeking through the bars, had trapped him. The dog had been such good company while he was isolated.

Now he worked hybrid going into the office three days a week. Those boring walks before work were never fast enough and he was often late for work.

He thought about taking Zorro back to the shelter, but the dog loved him, and he had to admit he loved the dog, but those walks...

They arrived at the park. He unleashed the  dog. Zorro bounded off in search of his four-footed buddies.

He sat on a bench waiting the 20 minutes for Zorro to exercise. The wind nibbled at his cheeks. Mentally he ran over the day's presentation.

"They are having fun," a woman with beautiful blue eyes sat down beside him. She owned a golden lab. He'd seen her many mornings, wanted to say hello, but always something stopped him.

He looked into her eyes and thought back to the day he'd met Zorro. He was a sucker for eyes.

"I've seen you here a lot," she said. "I'm going for coffee after. Do you and your dog want to join me?"

Bless Zorro, he thought.

D-L has had 17 fiction and non fiction books published. Check out her website at:. https://dlnelsonwriter.com     

Julia's Free Write

Opening the door, my mother pronounces “out you go.”.Cindy, our lovely, unexpected “gift” hastens to comply. But then we were in a house with multiple gardens. Cindy loved nothing more than stealing our rare ice cream from behind our backs.

Change of lives – and another inherited pet: Dash.  He really wasn’t much into dashing and went more reluctantly into the garden.

A period of time – and several moves later – Teddy entered my parent’s lives: chosen this time, he was much babied. Still, out into the garden though.

A university student, I moved into half a house and have no clue as to how my housemate and I ended up with Marla. But even there, there was a quiet street and a mini, enclosed, garden: the joys of walking the dog passed me by entirely.

Julia has written and taken photos all and loves syncing up with friends.  Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/